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IPI in the aseptic carton packaging industry: A Made in Italy tale

Italy is notoriously known around the world for its culture and delicious Mediterranean cuisine, for its breathtaking natural wonders and history, other than for its incomparable contributions to the world of fashion, art and architecture, design, and technology. Italians are the proud and fortunate inheritors of an extraordinary and unique craftsmanship heritage: that it the so called “Made in Italy”, also known as the Italian way of shaping ideas and ambitions, and of creating ever new ways to innovation, while staying true to historic traditional values.

"Made in Italy" has always been recognized – and appreciated - as a synonym of value, excellence and quality in many sectors. According to a research conducted by KPMG Advisory, the “Italian know-how” is the thirt best-known brand in the world, just right after Cola-Cola and Visa.

Made in Italy applies to both “traditional” and “specialized suppliers” industries, as refenced by Pavitt taxonomy, and represents the four major pillars of Italian economy. These four sector groups, as theorized by the Fortis-Corradini index, can be referred to as the so-called “4 Fs” of Italian excellence, that are: food farming, fashion clothing, home furniture and design and, finally, factory automation.

However, while food farming, fashion clothing and home furniture are notoriously linked to well-known luxury brands, not everyone knows that Italy is at the very forefront in specialized industries too, including automation, robotics, and mechanical manufacturing.

This should not come as a surprise: Italy is the second largest manufacturing country in Europe, just right after Germany, boasting a particularly strong business game in sectors such as machine tools, automotive and pharmaceuticals. Moreover, what is interesting to notice is that, despite Italy being the first Western country to have been heavily affected by the infamous COVID-19 outbreak, Italian industrial production actually showed significant signs of speed recovery in 2021, outperforming major economies in the Eurozone as well as experts’ forecasts.

This shows that, even in troubled times of financial crisis, the backbone of Italian economy – that is the unique “made in Italy” value – allows companies to keep their primacy and major export presence in international markets.

The value of Made in Italy: The Country of Origin effect in B2B markets

Despite what you may think, made in Italy is not an abstract notion, but it can affect one’s purchasing and consumption behavior through the so called “Country of Origin effect” (COO). Originally theorized in early 1960s, the COO effect gathers all previous marketing studies on national stereotypes and explains how a set of information on a certain product’s geographical origin can affect and influence the purchasing evaluation and decision-making process.

Both in B2B and B2C markets, indeed, the identified country-of-origin can influence a product’s or brand’s positioning by delivering top-level value and acting as a guarantee of high quality, thus reducing perceived risks – or vice versa, especially in case of negative stereotypes.

More specifically, COO effect can be divided into three main elements:

  • country of manufacture, that is, the country where production has taken place;
  • country of design, that is, the real - or perceived - country where the design phase has taken place;
  • country of brand;

Now, while having a significant impact on purchasing decisions in B2C markets, COO effect biases can be detected in B2B contexts as well, which are complex and extremely structured business arenas: B2B companies are expected to make multiple decisions consistent with pre-settled business objectives and goals, which, all in all, outlines a way more complex decision-making process than the one that takes place in B2C markets.

However, in such contexts, the interaction between the supplier firm and its customers is enriched by several additional levels, such as interactivity, satisfaction, trust and know-how, all of which can be easily affected by COO-driven biases; to put it simply, the perceived country image influences business relationships, especially when there is a huge cultural distance between the two parts involved.

For a firm, to be Italian basically means being awarded with quality, craftsmanship, innovation, design, and creativity recognition. Being Italian is treated an asset value, and the more the company operates in sectors linked with traditional made in Italy benefits, the more important – and stronger – this bias gets. “Italianness” is featured with flexibility and adaptability, which ensure top-quality interactions and technological solutions along the whole chain, ranging from the “installation and startup of production of the line” phase to the after-sales support and assistance activities.

IPI in the aseptic carton packaging industry: A Made in Italy tale

IPI: born in Italy, raised globally

For decades, IPI has been delivering top-quality aseptic packaging solutions for liquid, non-carbonated food products daily. All of this is enabled – and enriched – by the unique “Italian know-how” heritage resulting from more than 40 years of outstanding experience in the aseptic packaging industry.

Originally born in Perugia, Umbria, the green heart and very core center of Italy, and then raised globally, IPI now exports top-quality Italian technology and know-how excellence in 55 different countries around the world

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From the numerous quality and sustainability certifications to the tests carried out on our aseptic packaging material, everything, here at IPI, talks about Italian quality and know-how. We produce aseptic packaging material with the latest printing and converting technology, and we consistently carry out over 110 Quality checks through the entire production process to provide our customers with top-quality multilayer paper rolls.

Our two iconic aseptic filling machines, NSA EVO and FX120, are the pride of IPI R&D department. NSA EVO is the latest version of IPI’s most popular roll-fed aseptic carton filling machine: built upon Italian passionate know-how and experience over many years of continuous improvement, NSA EVO is now serving the F&B industry in 5 continents. As for FX120, it is the most recent made-in-IPI technology filler: developed by teams of experts coming from all over the world, FX120 is based on the effort of IPI, which boasts more than 40 years of experience in solutions for aseptic packaging; the result of these joint master extensive expertise is a state-of-the-art, innovative aseptic filler, where mechanical solutions prevail over mechatronic ones, thus allowing FX120 to blend the strengths of mechanical transmission with high production capacity and great reliability and efficiency.

IPI in the aseptic carton packaging industry: A Made in Italy tale

Strongly focused on assuring excellent assistance services all along, when Covid-19 pandemic first hit, IPI has also been among the first companies in the world to remotely support the installation of a whole production line through top-quality offered training and support services enriched by 4.0 Industry tools.

Moreover, despite being headquartered in Italy, IPI’s all-around technical assistance package service is tactically located in strategic, foreign countries too, logistically close to customers, to provide them with quick, prompt, and efficient support in case of need.

Always at the very forefront in the current market needs trends, IPI knows how to connect smart technology with deep market knowledge and anticipate its evolution, while staying true to its corporate and valuable history.

That is precisely where a great heritage past opens a bright future.

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